COMEDY REVIEW : Feminists, Militant Gays Get Roasted in ‘Barbecue’

Imagine sitting around the back-yard barbecue searing the sirloin and chewing the fat with Attila the Hun, Bob Dornan and Rush Limbaugh. You’ve got a pretty fair sense of the mood at “Big Daddy’s Barbecue.”

Subtitled “It’s OK to Be a White Male,” Jeff Wayne’s engaging 90-minute show is one man’s counterpunch to body blows from the “screaming feminists, militant minorities and radical gays” who blame the white male for discrimination, persecution and meteor showers. Pushy vegetarians, teetotalers and nonsmokers are also deflected, among others.

His show, at the Brea Improv through April 16, uses humor to coat his points--not to attack anyone. Although he is clearly baffled that white males can’t answer the challenges and charges for fear of being quickly labeled racist, sexist or homophobic, he makes it equally clear that he considers himself none of the above.

“I believe we’re all created equal,” he said at a recent performance. “I tell all women and minorities: ‘Don’t blame me for the past. You want to dig up my grandpa and kick his (butt)? You go right ahead.’ ”

Comments like that prompt the politically correct to paint Wayne as a racist redneck. But his diatribe comes across more like a plea for common sense, as interpreted by one middle-aged, middle-class married father of three. He’s simply surveying the terrain and reporting what he sees. And too often, what he sees is nonsense.

“It is definitely wrong to deny a woman or a minority a job based on that,” he told the crowd. “But it is also wrong, in my belief, to give them a job based on that. I believe somebody should be given a job based on: Can they do the job? If I’m going in for brain surgery, I don’t care if you’re a dolphin. Make me well.”

Anybody who whines is fair game for Wayne, whose act really comes down to a demand for individual responsibility. Pointing to his gut, the pudgy Wayne tells the crowd: “This is beer and pancakes. It’s not hereditary.”

The show, Wayne said in a recent interview, has its roots in something he figured out years ago.

“If a minority celebrates their ethnic history, it’s ethnic pride. If a white person does it, it’s racism. If a woman celebrates her womanhood, it’s life-affirming and wonderful. If a man celebrates his, it’s sexism. And if a gay person celebrates their sexuality, it’s liberating. If a straight person does it, it’s homophobic.”

Upon that foundation, he’s built this two-act show, with the help of collaborator Ted Lange, the actor-director best known from his stint on the “The Love Boat” as Isaac the bartender. “Big Daddy’s Barbecue” purrs along on medium high, underscoring attitudes, asking questions and noting inequities, unfairness and double standards.

Not coincidentally, both acts are set in male strongholds: the barbecue and the den. It is in the den where Big Daddy holds court in Act II, discussing his heroes: Ayn Rand, Johnny Mathis and Noel Coward. A feminist, a black and a gay. Go figure.

Wayne is reminiscent of Jackie Gleason in “The Honeymooners,” but his Ralph Cramden takes a more analytical, questioning approach. No socko to the moons. He’s brash and swinging wildly, but the way he sees it, the cause justifies the madness.

He bellows thoughts that many people merely whisper.

You almost sense the laughs are secondary, and that the message is the thing.

* Jeff Wayne’s “Big Daddy’s Barbecue” runs Wednesdays through Sundays at the Brea Improv, 945 E. Birch St. $8-$10. Ends April 16. (714) 529-7878.